I was a very religious Christian. My earliest memory of you is of you calling Jesus a cunt. I messaged the mods to get some discipline handed out, but no luck.
Over the years I have watched you virulently and unapologetically defend reason and truth. When sharing your views you are blunt, cocksure, insensitive, and offensive.
I want to say thanks.
Your consistent boldness and directness has challenged my thinking over the years. It has helped me recognize injustice. It has helped me make critical thinking second nature. It has helped me abandon my religion and idols for reason.
You are bold an honest to a fault. I have disagreed with you, but you always require your opponents to bring their “A” game. In developing your “A” game, you often learn something about yourself and your positions.
Wow newcrasher, so interesting that you have experienced this change of mind in part due to Der Trihs. Although I enjoy reading threads of religious discussion, I never really participate because it’s too frustrating that it seems impossible to change people’s minds. In my experience all the logic and reason in the world couldn’t change the mind of someone lost in belief and dogma. Very interesting to know that it can happen! Can you tell us more about how this came about?
I apprecriate Der Trihs too, offensive remarks & rage and all
Gosh! This may the very first time I have ever seen a very religious person (perhaps even a fundie) grasp the importance of reason because of their interactions on a message board.
Astounding.
Newcomer, it takes guts to post what you did. Kudos!
Well, I never said that; it’s just not an insult I’ve ever used for anyone*.
But otherwise, thank you.
And searching I found this old thread pitting a now-banned poster named badchad for calling Jesus a cunt, in which for some reason John Mace claimed “badchad = Der Trihs”. Perhaps you read that way back when and misremembered later?
Here is the thing about changing minds. You are not going to see it happen. The best you can do is plant a seed and if a person is really interested in truth the rest will take care of itself, eventually. But there are so many who are happy in their ignorance. I guess there are two types of people: those who use evidence to seek the truth, and those who think they have truth and selectively seek evidence to support that they want to believe. Some people you will never reach because they are not seeking truth.
I developed a partnership between my church and a few in Central America. I have actually raised a fair amount of money on the Dope for mission trips. Since I was the de facto leader of these trips, I always made them serve practical needs such as feeding and educating kids, and never evangelizing. Eventually I realized I didn’t need to profess any mythology to help these kids.
I struggled for years and was able to put my disbelief on the back burner because I was able to see so much good being done.
I just got tired of explaining why I was a xtian but thought gays deserved equality.
I just got tired of explaining why I was a xtian but thought women shouldn’t be subservient.
I just got tired of explaining why I was a xtian but thought Muslims wouldn’t go to hell.
I just got tired of explaining why god ordered genocide in the old testament.
I just got tired of explaining why god plans an even greater genocide when he returns.
I just got tired of explaining how dead people can’t come back to life.
I just want to enjoy life, share experiences with my family and friends, and do good along the way.
I have known religious people who changed to become atheists but have never known an atheist who got religion. Has anyone? How did that happen? I can see getting “reason” but not exactly “getting” “faith” if you know what I mean.
I can imagine an atheist who was ‘miraculous’ healed from a disease becoming Christian.
Mind you, the word ‘miraculous’ in this case means something that the doctors said wasn’t going to happen.
As in a sudden remission from late stage lung cancer, or something like that.
But, I also imagine that there would have to be some ‘magical’ activity that occurred immediately before the tumors dissipated. Like a faith healer saying ‘Please Jesus Heal this man’, or something similar.
Sure. I don’t know all the details about how it happened, but while my fiance was growing up in a secular home his mother went from non-religious to religious. I suspect it had something to do with losing one of her children in a tragic way. A lot of people end up turning to religion for comfort after something like that, rightly or wrongly.
I think there are a lot of folks who live life swinging from one extreme to the other, actually. I think there are a lot of similarities in the black and white thinking of a Christian fundamentalist who thinks everyone is going to hell and an atheist who thinks that all religious people are idiots. Empathy and nuance are lost on some people regardless of what team they’re on.
Agreed. My dad is almost an atheist but he holds on because my brother died when he was 5 and god is his one chance to see his son again. I understand, and would never judge a person who has lost a child.
But I think there is a distinction to be drawn between non-theist (brought up without religion) and atheist (holding the view that there are no gods). A non-theist can discover religion, but an atheist already has a system he rejects the notion of gods. Certainly either can convert, and I am sure it happens all the time.
I mean this with the utmost respect and I hope I don’t insult you in any way in asking this, it’s not my intent. Also I hope I don’t derail the conversation too much asking this.
I have always been an atheist but was raised to be respectful of everyone, and I try very hard to appreciate everyone for who they are. Do you feel you benefited by being a believer then becoming atheist, or would you have rather not been a believer in the first place? Was the journey from one place to another a growing experience or something you wish you had not had to endure? Are there aspects of faith you now miss?
I appreciate any thoughts you have here and if I have overstepped myself I apologize. I have never experienced what you have and I am curious what it was like.
I just wanted to add that I also appreciate your posts, Der Trihs. I’m already an atheist, but I think you add a lot of good stuff to the board. And some bad, but you know, who doesn’t? Anyway, you get a lot of flak, but I think you are pretty rad. It’s nice to see someone who hasn’t given up on giving a shit.
And another. I don’t always agree with you, Der, or with the way you present your arguments, but most of the time I do and most of the time I like how blunt you are.
The benefit of being a believer first…I come to atheism with an understanding of how (many but not all) religious minds work. I have a sense for what they believe and why, and why they reject reason. I am able to have more empathy for them because most of them are trapped in a self fulfilling system that was not of their choice. Most theist I know are very kind, decent, and generous people who don’t understand how damaging their religion is to themselves and society. But I have been religious and vetted it with a heart desperate to make it make sense, and it just does not. I’m not dismissing it lightly.
My conversion (deconversion?) was a growing process for sure. I always was rational, and tried to make religion fit into my rational mind.
Once early in my religious life I struggled with the fact that Jesus I’d “no one comes to rather exepth through me”. Trying to rationalize this with all of the good folks I knew who were not Christian, I suggested in a study group that if I lived in Kansas, and had a brother in DC, I could be 100% honest with him and say "to get to me, the ONLY WAY is to travel west. Then if I had a sister in L.A. I could say with 100% honesty that to get to me the ONLY WAY is to travel east. Different ways to get the people I love to me, but being honest to them both. Could we then accept that other people are n other paths to god without it diminishing the path we are on?
There was silence, then someone said “you shouldn’t say that anymore”. I realized them that this was not a pursuit of truth, but a circle jerk for people who just want their beliefs reinforced.
I was very involved for 10 years to the point that my life revolved around playing in the band, singing in the choir, being a deacon, sitting in committees, planning mission trips, attending prayer meeting, bible study, etc etc. my regret is that I didn’t dedicate that time to learning more about physics or music, which I love.
What do I miss? The community. When I was in church I had ready made extended family and we would do anything for each other. Replicating that in the secular world is difficult. Slowly but surely we are making new friends and have kept a few old ones. But yes, the community is something that made me hold on for much longer.
Thank you for that explanation. Having never had faith to begin with your insight is a bit like trying to explain blue to me, a man who only sees black & white.
Good luck in finding your community. I know it can be done, just go follow one of your other passions and it will come.
